History Literature / GameChange

** Even George W. Bush, who seemed at least willing to hear his former rival out, seemed angry and embarrassed that McCain wasted everyone's time, and was also impressed at Obama's insight given the circumstances.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: After Steve searches for potential female vice president candidates and watches a clip from an interview where Palin gives a well-worded response to the man interviewing her, we see her telling the exact same thing ''word for word'' to a constituent, hinting at her being better at memorizing lines than actually knowing the substance behind them.

--> '''Rick Davis:''' Who knows, we could have another Dewey-Truman situation here...always room for an upset.
--> '''Steve Schmidt:''' Maybe I'll wake up with a full head of hair.

* HopeSpot: The Vice Presidential debate is depicted as this for the [=McCain=] camp. Upon seeing Palin handle the debate calmly and with renewed energy, with almost no gaffes, Steve and the others think they can still win. However, immediately after is when they begin bringing up Rev. Wright and Bill Ayres out of desperation, causing the campaign to nose dive into batshit crazy with Palin at the center.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To Creator/{{HBO}}'s other election movie ''Recount'', about the 2000 ballot count and directed by the same person; possibly a trilogy with ''Film/TooBigToFail'', about the 2008 financial crisis. HBO is also prepping ''Double Down'', a planned film about the 2012 election.

It covers all the major events of the campaign, with most of the focus on the contentious Democratic primaries, in particular the fight between Barack and Hillary. In addition, it offers startling and perceptive insights into the behind-the-scenes drama during the election — Obama’s attempts to remain in the race; the Clintons’ increasing ire at the media for its soft coverage of Obama; the complete destruction of Edwards’ campaign and marriage before, during and after his affair with videographer Rielle Hunter; the last-minute switch-out of Joe Lieberman with UsefulNotes/SarahPalin as the Republican vice presidential nominee; and the increasing chaos of the [=McCain=] campaign after the financial crisis, and through it all the constant interplay and threats of racism and sexism.

* TheChosenOne: Barack to the Clintons and [=McCains=], who were so irritated by the media's soft handling of him they felt it was borderline VillainWithGoodPublicity.

* TrueCompanions: All the campaigns started out with one. [[TearJerker Only Barack's survived.]]

It covers all the major events of the campaign, with most of the focus on the contentious Democratic primaries, in particular the fight between Barack and Hillary. In addition, it offers startling and perceptive insights into the behind-the-scenes drama during the election — Obama’s attempts to remain in the race; the Clintons’ increasing ire at the media for its soft coverage of Obama; the complete destruction of Edwards’ campaign and marriage before, during and after his affair with videographer Rielle Hunter; the last-minute switchout of UsefulNotes/SarahPalin over Joe Lieberman for Republican vice president; and the increasing chaos of the [=McCain=] campaign after the financial crisis, and through it all the constant interplay and threats of racism and sexism.

** In [=McCain=]'s absence, Palin was thrust onto center stage, further highlighting how ignorant she was of national issues; in the film, when Schmidt tries to prepare her for questions about how the government is responding to the crisis, he has to start from scratch and explain to her (among other things) what the Federal Reserve does;

* HypocriticalHumor: Steve tells [=McCain=] to stop watching ''Series/CountdownWithKeithOlbermann'' and Creator/{{Fox News|Channel}}, because "it's all just bullshit." Then Steve quickly turns off his TV, which is tuned to Fox News, which is just as biased as what [=McCain=] was watching, just towards the other party.

* IDidWhatIHadToDo: On Election Night, Nicolle Wallace breaks down in tears and confesses to Steve Schmidt that she couldn't bring herself to vote for [=McCain=], her own party's candidate, because the idea of Palin succeeding him as President was too scary to contemplate. Schmidt hugs her and says he understands completely.

* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: Averted at first. [=McCain=] refuses to bring up Rev. Wright or Bill Ayres to attack Obama, and only very reluctantly does so late in the campaign, after reminding his team about when ''he'' suffered a personal smear back in 2000. There's also some foreshadowing to the Tea Party, which would rise in Obama's first term.
--> '''Rick Davis:''' South Carolina was an ugly primary, but this isn't the same thing! I'm mean, Rev. Wright really did say these things!
-->'''John [=McCain=]:''' That may be true. But there's a dark side to American populism. Some folks win elections by tapping into it. [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure I'm not one of those people]].

* PretenderDiss: At one point, Palin compares herself to UsefulNotes/HillaryRodhamClinton -- who, whatever her faults, is indisputably[[note]]well-respected Senator, called one of the finest modern Secretaries of State in American history, and the first woman to be the presidential nominee of a major political party in 2016[[/note]] one of the most politically accomplished women in American history. Nicolle Wallace is ''extremely'' unimpressed, and makes that quite clear.
-->'''Palin:''' I am not your puppet! ''Now'' I understand what Hillary meant when she said she had to find her own voice!\\

* ItWillNeverCatchOn: "[The day after the elections] no one will know who Sarah Palin is." Though she hasn't held elected office since, Sarah remained at least tangentially relevant in Right Wing American politics through 2016.

* CriticalResearchFailure: [[invoked]] Both Schmidt and their vetting Law Firm each thought the other would handle the policy questions with Palin, so none of them were prepared for her serious deficiencies in that area.

* PoisonousFriend: How the movie portrays Palin.

* BitchInSheepsClothing: Elizabeth Edwards, despite her public IllGirl persona.

* ManicPixieDreamGirl: An extremely disturbing real life example with Rielle Hunter to Edwards. She was fascinated with New Age philosophy, astrology and reincarnation, and would announce to people she had just met that she was a witch. She also pumped Edwards up, claiming he could be as great a leader as Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi. Other Edwards campaign team members who were interviewed describe how she just insinuated herself into the entire campaign, becoming Edwards's constant companion - when she had just been hired to run a documentary film crew about the campaign. To this day, that video has never been publicly released, despite the fact that it was the ''one job'' that Rielle was officially supposed to be doing. The reason why is that the other campaign team members state that when they watched the rough cut, Hunter and Edwards were clearly flirting throughout it. Pause a moment and ask yourself: 1 - How ''blatantly obvious'' must their flirting have been that even a TV audience that didn't know them personally would pick up on it? 2 - This is the video ''Hunter herself'' submitted to them: she had become so removed from reality that she gave them a final cut of a video in which she was obviously flirting with Edwards, with ''zero thought'' to the consequences. For that matter, Edwards also knew in most of these shots that he was on camera - but he was so wrapped up in Hunter's praise that he didn't even think to stop flirting with her.

** In [=McCain=]'s absence, Palin is thrust onto center stage, further highlighting how ignorant she is of national issues; in the film, when Schmidt tries to prepare her for questions about how the government is responding to the crisis, he has to start from scratch and explain to her (among other things) what the Federal Reserve does;